About the book
This page goes into detail. Two excerpts from the preface that show the tone and the approach of the book, what you will learn, what makes it different and the full table of contents, chapter by chapter.
If you came from the home page and want a sample before deciding, the two excerpts below are the best place to start.
Running just to stand still
Lewis Carroll wrote a scene in Through the Looking-Glass (1871) that I have watched play out again and again in technology teams. The Red Queen tells Alice: “Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!”
For years I thought that metaphor was an exaggeration. Not anymore.
Cultivating, not building
We say we “build software”. Building suggests something that gets finished, that once done stays there, that lets you move on to the next thing. But software is not built. It is cultivated.
It is a living system. It grows, it degrades, it adapts if you tend to it. Its real advantage is not that it is solid like a building. It is that it is malleable.
Every feature you add does not only have an initial cost. It carries a permanent Basal Cost: maintenance, integration, cognitive load, future friction. Every line of live code consumes the team's capacity every single day.
What you will learn
- 01
How to identify your system's Basal Cost, and why it grows inevitably if no one acts.
- 02
The early signs of degradation, before the team spirals.
- 03
How to eliminate real waste in software development.
- 04
Why quality is not the enemy of speed, but its only sustainable foundation.
- 05
How to build end-to-end teams with real ownership of the system.
- 06
The uncomfortable decisions nobody wants to make, and how to make them on solid ground.
- 07
How to combine Lean, XP, and the product mindset in concrete decisions, not as loose vocabulary.
What makes it different
-
It is deliberately uncomfortable
It hands out no recipes. It asks for decisions.
-
Real conflicts, real mistakes
Actual moments of friction, including the author's own mistakes.
-
Basal Cost as an economic frame
Software is not an asset, it is a liability. That frame runs through the whole book.
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Voices of practitioners
Eight professionals interviewed who have lived these transformations from the inside.
Full table of contents
Sixteen chapters organized in four parts, plus prologue, preface, epilogue and appendices. Every chapter links to its block of complementary resources.
Prologue
By Georgina Giannoukou
Preface
Foundations
The Lean principles in practice
Sustainable quality
Systems thinking
Epilogue: Why I don't talk about AI (and why that matters)
Appendices
Cases and voices of the transformation · References and sources · Acknowledgments
You finish the book with three things: a clear diagnosis of where your team stands, a shared vocabulary to talk about Basal Cost, waste, flow and quality, and enough internal pressure to make at least one uncomfortable decision in the next 30 days.
Take it with you
The English edition is out now. The buying page lists every channel and format available, each with its own link.
This page is also available in Spanish.